ON THE CHOICE ADDRESS FORMS: INTIMATE ADDRESS FORMS AS IN-GROUP IDENTITY MARKERS OF BLACK SOUTH AFRICANS IN 'Invictus' MOVIE - Diponegoro University | Institutional Repository (UNDIP-IR)
ON THE CHOICE ADDRESS FORMS:
INTIMATE ADDRESS FORMS AS IN-GROUP
IDENTITY MARKERS OF BLACK SOUTH AFRICANS
IN ‘Invictus’ MOVIE
Prihantoro
([email protected])
Universitas Diponegoro
Jl. Prof. Soedharto, S.H., Tembalang Semarang 50269, Indonesia
Abstract: Invictus is a movie which is adapted from a true story of how
the South African President, Nelson Mandela, tried to unite South Africa
by supporting the national rugby team, Springbok, which used to be the
symbol of Apartheid. His relation with other characters in this movie is reflected from the address forms and the choice is influenced by many aspects like social distance among the participants, age difference, formality
scale etc. This paper focuses on the choice of address forms used among
the participants. Besides the variety and progressive use of address forms,
the finding also shows that the choice of address forms used by ‘black’
and ‘white’ South Africans are quite different, especially those addressed
to Mandela. I observed that some in-group identity markers among the
blacks are realized by intimate address forms like Mandela’s nickname
Madiba, or companion address Comrade. In the past, these address forms
are known as the devices to struggle against the Apartheid system.
Key words: address forms, apartheid, power, solidarity.
Below is an exchange of conversation between a ‘(B)lack’ and a
‘(W)hite’ presidential guards in the office as shown in Invictus movie.
(B) : Madiba does not like it if you don’t smile when you push
people away.
(W) : Madiba? (bizarre look).
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Prihantoro , On The Choice Address Forms 29
(B)
(W)
(B)
: That’s the president’s clan name. That’s what we call
him.
(Silence for a while)
: We’ll call him Mr. President.
: Can we go through the schedule now? (Agitated)
Apartheid system can simply be defined as legal racial discrimination of ‘white’ and ‘black’ (where white minority group used to rule)
that used to be adopted by South African government (Mc Donald,
2009). Back in 1894-1994, for 50 years, this complexion-based racial
segregation has set a dividing wall among the inhabitants of South Africa. For years, there have also been some attempts to disengage this system. The inauguration of Nelson Mandela as South African President in
1994 is the culmination point, but even after he was formally elected,
Mandela still encountered the residue of the Apartheid system; which
was the extreme dislike from black South African over the whites and
also vice-verse. The wound caused by the system is hard to heal quickly.
One of Mandela’s attempts to disengage the impression of apartheid
is by supporting Springbok, the national rugby team of South Africa. At
first, many people did not like this because in the past, this team was
considered to represent apartheid: The black had never been appointed
as team member. For this reason, black Africans would cheer for any
Springbok’s opponents. Mandela took initiative to change this. His attempt was finally highly appreciated and adapted into a movie, Invictus.
In that movie, address forms is presented as one of the language devices
used to symbolize opposition against apartheid system.
This paper aims at describing the use of pronouns and address forms
used by the characters in Invictus. The first section of this chapter presents the background of the research including previous studies. The second section presents research method and the third section presents patterns of address forms used by the characters in this movie. Fourth sec-
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TEFLIN Journal, Volume 23, Number 1, January 2012
tion discusses the choice of the address forms by the characters in the
context where they are spoken: note that the discussion is thematic. Fifth
section concludes the paper with a summary and it also contains some
suggestions for further research.
There are some reasons why this movie is worth an analysis. First,
the usage of address forms in this movie is quite dynamic and varied.
One can be addressed by several address forms depending on particular
aspects, like solidarity scale, power relation, degree of formality and etc.
Second, some of the address forms are unique: address forms like Sir,
Mr, and Dear are quite familiar in English. However some other address
forms in this movie require shared knowledge like Mandiga, Baba,
which seems to be the native terms unique in South Africa. Third, the
choice of address forms is not without purpose. The analysis presented
in the discussion section of this paper will show that the choice of some
address forms still reflects the heritage of Apartheid system in South Africa. It also shows a particular social bond or group exclusiveness among
the participants engaged in the discourse.
LITERATURE REVIEW
The basic concept adopted in this paper is power and solidarity relation that was studied by Brown and Gilman (1961) in French. They have
observed that the use of pronouns might reflect power and solidarity
scale among the participants engaged in the interaction. The study performed by Brown and Gilman about how tu and vous pronoun covers
this issue, which is later known as T-V distinction of power and solidarity. Although the term ‘T-V’ distinction originated from French, this term
has been widely used in sociolinguistic and pragmatic studies.
In some languages like French, Spanish, Dutch (Helmbrecht, 2005)
or some other languages that have low-high form pronouns, T-V distinction can be seen clearly from the pronoun for there are some form distinctions with regard to participants relationship. However in English,
Prihantoro , On The Choice Address Forms 31
for instance, You is the only second person pronoun that is addressed regardless of the power and solidarity among the participants. Hence, we
can still observe the power and solidarity among the participants by observing the use of another linguistic device.
Power and solidarity in the language where the pronouns are quite
‘neutral’, are represented by the choice of address forms like Sir, Dear,
Mr etc. As a foreground, Power and solidarity scale is observed in
Brown and Ford (1961), Brown (1965) and Ervin-Tripp (1972, 2001)
who studied the formula for addressing. In a more generic sense, Brown
and Levinson (1987) included the choice of address forms as one of the
positive politeness strategy. This strategy implies on taking hearer’s
need into account, caring about his/her interest. The choice of address
forms, one of them, is employed as an in-group marker as an attempt to
reduce FTA (Face Threatening Act). The effect is quite strong since it
establishes one common ground shared between addressor and the addressee. But one must be careful since the inappropriate choice of address form might increase FTA weight, damaging the hearer. That is
why this strategy is commonly employed by those who are solidary or
who know each other fairly well.
Many of the research concerning address forms have been performed
over individual languages like English (Dickey, 1997; Yang, 2010), Indonesian (Kridalaksana, 1974, Prihantoro, 2005; Djenar, 2011), Polish
(Jaworsky & Galzinski, 2000), Korean (Choo, 2006; Prihantoro, 2011)
and some other languages.
This study observes the use of English address terms in South Africa
used by the characters in the movie. Although the scenario of the movie
is considered an artificial one, this study is considered important as the
choice of the address forms in this is carefully selected to convey the effect of Apartheid system in South Africa.
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METHOD
The data in this movie is obtained from a direct observation on the
movie. It began with the identification of address terms used by the
characters in the movie. The conversations in the some carefully selected
scenes were transcribed to represents the contexts where the address
forms are used. Besides, dialogue among the participants, some situational aspects that support the choice of address forms were also added
on the transcripts as well as the setting, channel (direct conversation,
phone, letter etc), degree of informality and other required aspects to
support analysis in the discussion section. The address forms were then
listed and classified into different categories in the findings section. Note
that in the list, the categorization is form based, while the functions are
elaborated in discussion section.
Discussion section is divided into four sub sub-sections. Each section
is organized thematically based on the functions of the address forms.
Thus, in the thematic classification readers might find address forms
from different categories in the findings mixed up.
FINDINGS
The story of Invictus movie revolves around Nelson Mandela, the
newly elected president of South Africa, and Francois Pienaar, the captain of Springbok Rugby Team. Address forms in this movie are identified mostly in Mandela’s dialogue with other characters in terms of frequency and variation. But, not many dialogues performed by Pienaar,
the second leading character. The scenes involving Pienaar depicts more
physical action in the rugby field than dialogues. The roles of other
characters are also taken into account as addressors instead of addressees. This section discusses findings, which are the types, patterns and
lists of address forms used by the characters in the movie.
Prihantoro , On The Choice Address Forms 33
Title and Name
Address forms with title and name is dominant in this movie. As it is
widely known in English (Brown & Ford, 1961; Dickey, 1997; Yang,
2010), they might be used separately or combined together. The pattern
also follows the common patterns of address forms found in English. For
instance, Nelson Mandela can be addressed by his first and last name
(FN+LN). He is sometimes addressed also by Mandela (LN), almost
never by Nelson (FN). There is only one scene in the end where Nelson
Mandela is addressed by FN by the sport fans in the rugby stadium. Address forms with FN are frequently used to address other characters like
Francois for Springbok captain, Jason for the head of presidential guard,
Brenda for Mandela’s secretary, Eunice for the servant and some other
supporting characters. The address form that includes middle name is
not found in this movie.
Table 1. Titles and Names as Address Forms
No
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
Patterns
FN
Examples
Nelson, Brenda, Chester, Mary, Hendrick, Francois, Sindzi
LN
Mandela
FN+LN
Nelson Mandela
Honorific Title
Sir
Rank Title
Captain
Honorific Title + LN
Mr. Pienaar, Mrs. Brits
Rank Title+LN
Captain Feyder , President Mandela
Honorific Title+FN+LN Mr. Nelson Mandela, Mr. Jason
Tshabalala
Honorific Title+ Rank Mr.President
Title
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Honorific address like Sir is also frequently used. None of this address
form in the movie goes with name. An honorific title Mr is also frequently found and usually combined with name. The patterns are
Mr+FN+LN (Mr. Jason Tshabalala) or MR+LN (Mr. Mandela), but
never Mr+FN (*Mr. Nelson). This complies to the patterns of addresses
for English where Mr does not usually go with first name.
The use of Mr is sometimes followed by official rank in the government like Mr. President and Mr. Minister. Table 1 above presents the title and name address forms used in this movie:
Kinship
Title and name are not the only types of address form used in the
movie. Kinship terms are also used as address terms, but they can sometimes be used as references. Note that they are two distinct phenomena.
The word Son, for example, has two meaning: referential meaning and
address meaning. Referential meaning is used in non address context
(Dickey, 1997). Son as in ‘I have a son’ is an instance of kinship term in
referential sense, as opposed to Son in ‘good luck, Son’ which has address meaning.
Based on the kinship relations, the address forms in this movie can
be classified into two: parent-child (e.g. son, boy) and sibling (e.g.
brother, sister). They are presented in table 2:
Table 2. Kinship Terms as Address Forms
No
1
2
Patterns
Parent-child
Sibling
Examples
Son, Boy,Ma
Brother, Sister
These forms allow addresses to be used among those that do not
even have family ties. For instance, Son is used by Nelson Mandela to
Prihantoro , On The Choice Address Forms 35
address Francois Pienaar. They are not related as a family at all, but the
use of this kind of address forms may reduce social distance among the
speakers
Intimate Addresses
Intimate addresses are used to reflect a particular relationship among
the speakers, which is friendly and close as studied in English (Brown
and Ford, 1961), Persian (Aliakbari and Tomi, 2010). Given that formality and rank are taken into account, there are some situations where the
participants can address colleagues in more amiable tone.
In this movie, there are several intimate address forms that are quite
unique. The first type is the personal nickname used to address Nelson
Mandela, Madiba. this address forms is originated from his clan name,
as it is described in the excerpt shown in the beginning of this paper. Beside Madiba, Nelson Mandela can also be addressed with another intimate address Dada.
The second type is group nickname Okes. This nickname originates
from the nickname of Springbok rugby team. This national rugby team is
nicknamed Bokke, and to address the members of the group as a whole,
it is shortened to Okes.
The third type is in-group address like Comrade. This address form
is widely known to be used among the socialist or communist especially
in the meeting. In this movie, Comrade is also used in the meeting where
the agenda is to boycott Springbok. Nelson Mandela is addressed with
Comrade or Comrade President a combination of in group address and
rank title. In depth discussion is presented in the discussion section, but
the list of intimate address is presented in table 3.
The address forms found in this movie are quite dynamic in terms
of patterns or addressor-addressee relation, since one can be addressed
by different address forms. It reflects the addressors attitude toward the
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TEFLIN Journal, Volume 23, Number 1, January 2012
addressees. Next section discusses some essential function of address
forms that are organized thematically.
Table 3: Intimate Address Forms
No
1
2
3
4
Patterns
Personal Nickname
Group Nickname
In-Group Address
In Group Address + Rank Title
Examples
Madiba, Dada
Okes
Comrade(s)
Comrade President
DISCUSSION
Social Distance, Formality and Age
Social distance among the participants can be observed from the address terms especially from the use of title and name (Brown and
Ford,1961: Ervin-Tripp 1972, 2001). The honorific address forms such
as Mr, Sir, Mrs are used to address a person of superior power or of
higher rank, as presented in example 1. The dialogue is between the
white coach and his team member (white Africans). They are talking
about Mandela:
Example (1)
Team member : Who is that, Sir?
Coach
: It’s that terrorist, Mandela. They let him out.
The dialogue took place in the training ground for junior rugby team. All
participants are white. We focus on the forms addressed to the coach by
team members, Sir, which reflect rank difference. Sir is also used among
black and white participants even if the addressee is white, as illustrated
in example 2.
Prihantoro , On The Choice Address Forms 37
Example (2)
Feyder : Captain Feyder and team reporting for duty, Sir!
Jason : What duty?
Feyder : With the presidential bodyguard. We’ve been assigned
to this office.
Here are our orders.
The dialogue takes place in the presidential office among presidential
guards. Jason (black) is the head of the guard. He is the man that Mandela trusts the most to protect him. Jason once requested for more men to
protect President Nelson Mandela. He was surprised as there were four
special branch cops in his office. He was surprised not because of the
special branch cops were well known for they expertise, but he was
more surprised that the cops are all white instead of black like all his
team personnel.
Here we can see that Sir is used by Feyder (white) as Jason has officially higher rank than him. They are also engaged in the conversation
for the first time and had not known each other before. The racial difference did not affect the choice of address forms in formal situation. This
happens most of the time in the movie. Now, let us have a look at example (3), where names are also used:
Example (3)
President (C)lerk
: Mr. Pienaar. Right this way, please.
(F)rancois
: Yeah. Thank you.
(C)
: Go on in.
[Francois was greeted by (M)andela in his presidential office.]
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(M)
(F)
(M)
: Francois. What an honor. I am so excited. Thank you for coming all this way to
see me.
: Yes, Sir. Thank you for inviting me, Mr.
President.
: Do tell me, Francois. How is your ankIe?
Francois Pienaar, the captain of Springbok was waiting to see the president. He was invited for a tea. The president’s clerk addressed him with
Mr. Pienaar, which is a combination of title and last name. Here we can
see that she tries to maintain formality with Pienaar who is totally the
opposite of Mandela. In example (3) we can see that Mandela keeps addressing him using just Pienaar.
The president addresses Pienaar with just his first name Francois to
reduce social distance and formality. But the captain tried to maintain
formality and social distance by addressing Mandela with Sir and Mr.
President. This complies with the proposal of Brown and Ford (1961)
that people of socially lower in rank tend to use high form to address
ones of higher rank, which does not necessary apply for higher (H) rank
to lower rank (L); also known as non-reciprocality. Consider the summary in table (4):
Table 4. Non Reciprocal Address Forms: Nelson Mandela and Francois Pienaar
Participants
From
To
Mandela
Pienaar
Pienaar
Mandela
Mandela
Pienaar
Address
L: Francois
H: Sir, Mr.President
L: Francois
Prihantoro , On The Choice Address Forms 39
Nelson Mandela and Francois Pienaar have just met for the first time. If
we refer to the situation in example (2) with Jason and Feyder, they
should have addressed each other with title since the situation is formal.
However, Mandela chose to use high form (title), or low (first name). In
example (3) we see that he just addressed the captain with first name. In
the same scene, Mandela addresses his presidential servant with title +
LN. Consider example (4):
Example (4)
[Mrs. Britz, the presidential office servant came with the tea. The
president welcomed her.]
Mandela (to Mrs. Brits)
: You are a shining light in my day.
Mrs. Brits
: Yes, Sir.
(M)
: Mrs. Britz, this is Francois
Pienaar, captain of the
Springbok.
[Mrs.Brits and Francois spoke in African Dialect for a while]
Mrs. Brits (to Mandela)
(M)
: Shall I pour, Sir?
: No. No. I would prefer to do it
myself. Thank you very much,
Mrs. Brits. How do you like
your tea. Francois?
Despite his higher rank, Mandela still addressed his presidential servant
with Mrs. This might possibly be caused by the age difference. The
servant is already old, approximately as old as Mandela, while Francois
is much younger than Mandela. All the people that Mandela addressed
with first name were much younger than him.
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TEFLIN Journal, Volume 23, Number 1, January 2012
Since Mandela is the highest in official rank, it is quite difficult to
observe scenes where he is addressed with only first name. But, by the
end of the movie, all the audience in national stadium regardless their
skin color called him with just first name Nelson repeatedly. In this informal situation, we can see that the social distance has been reduced.
The first name addressed to Mandela in this movie has broken down the
border between black and white South African, which is also represented
by the support of all South Africans to Springbok team.
Besides FN, another address form that can also reduce social distance is nickname. In this movie, there is a scene when Mandela is addressed by a nickname Dada.
Example (5)
(S)ervant
(M)andela
(S)
(M)
(S)
(M)
(S)
(M)
(S)
: Here's your Muti, Madiba. I warmed the miIk
tonight.
: Ah. You are too good to me, Mary.
: Your daughter called to cancel her visit this
weekend.
: Did she say why?
: No. she didn't. She said to tell you she was sorry.
: I see.
: Do you need anything else tonight?
: No, Mary. Thank you. I will go to bed.
: Good evening, Dada.
Mary is the servant of Mandela in his house. Besides serving Muti (African dish) she was informing Mandela about the cancellation of his
daughter’s visit. She is the only one that addresses Mandela with Dada
in this movie. Mandela himself did not show any rejection of this address.
Prihantoro , On The Choice Address Forms 41
To reduce social distance among the participants, one can also use
kinship terms. Kinship terms are terms that refer to family members, but
not exclusively used for genealogically related members only. For example, the use of Bu or Pak in Indonesian language, which refers to
mother and father, are used as a respectful address even though the participants do not have family relation at all. In this movie, some of the
kinship terms are also used as address forms to reduce social distance. In
the greeting session before the rugby match begins, Mandela addressed
each team member with Son, wishing them good luck for the game.
In another situation, Mandela used kinship terms Brother and Sister
(example 8) to address members of a group. But the intimate address
terms also serve as in-group identity markers, which will be discussed in
the next section.
In-Group Identity Marking
In this movie, I identified some of the address forms that are used
only among black South Africans. Most of them are classified to intimate address forms type.
The use of address forms as in-group identity markers is presented in
example (6):
Example (6)
President’s Clerk : Madiba? The cabinet ministers are here to brief
you on the trip to Taiwan.
Mandela
: Oh yes, I’ll be right out
Here, the president’s clerk was giving a friendly reminder to Mandela
about the meeting with the ministers. She addressed Mandela with just
Madiba and it is just normal address that all black South Africans use.
Madiba is the president’s clan name, and that become an address form
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TEFLIN Journal, Volume 23, Number 1, January 2012
for him. Although the situation is formal, we see that this address is preserved. Mandela himself always addresses his presidential clerk with just
first name Brenda as she is black. Whoever the addressor is, as long as
he or she is black, he or she can address Mandela using Madiba (no
whites addressed Mandela this way).
Besides Madiba, another address form that is used as an in-group
marker is Comrade, as presented in example (7):
Example (7)
Jason
Mandela
: Comrade President, not long ago, these guys tried to
kill us. Maybe even these four guys in my office tried
and often succeeded.
: Yes. I know…. Forgiveness starts here too. Forgiveness liberates the soul. It removes fear. That is why
it is such a powerful weapon. Please, Jason. Try…
Jason, the head of presidential bodyguard, came to the office of the president to confirm the letter signed by Mandela. He is questioning why
there are white cops to help him. Mandela explains that this is his method of reconciliation, to unite the black and white.
We see that the address form used by Jason is Comrade President.
Comrade is a term that is used by the socialists or communists to address
friends in a meeting. In this movie, this address form reflects the bond of
Jason and Mandela as fellow freedom fighters to oppose apartheid system.
Brown and Gilman (1987) categorize the use of address terms under
positive politeness strategy as a strategy to establish a common ground.
We might see that the terms Comrade and Madiba are used to establish a
common ground among the participants as black South Africans who
used to be oppressed. No whites can use these two addresses to Mandela.
Prihantoro , On The Choice Address Forms 43
Let us consider another situation where the combination of comrade
with rank, Comrade President, is used. In this situation, Comrade President is addressed in a meeting (Example 8)
Example (8)
[South African anthem was stopped]
(L)eader of the meeting : Comrades, Comrades, members of
the choir. We would only interrupt
such beautiful music for something
truly important. Please welcome, President Mandela. (welcoming the president)
[The president is walking to the front, greeted by everyone]
(M)andela
: Thank you. (smiling)
Woman
: Madiba.
Man 1
: WeIcome. Madiba.
(M)
: Thank you.
Man 2
: MandeIa.
[Short pause. Mandela took position on the microphone and
spoke.]
(M)
: Brothers......Sisters......Comrades. I am here because I believe you have made a decision...
...with insufficient information and foresight.
The meeting was attended by many people, most of them were not
known by Mandela. He could only see that all of them were black. In
this way, the use of address terms Comrade among the participants is
still acceptable. The dialogue excerpt above has shown that intimate address forms can also be used for strangers as long as they have a common ground.
We can see here that Mandela addressed the participants, all of
whom are black, with various addresses Brothers, Sisters, and Com-
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TEFLIN Journal, Volume 23, Number 1, January 2012
rades. Mandela used these addresses to indicate a special bond of family
and fellow freedom fighters. By indicating the common grounds, he
hoped that people will listen to his explanation and finally understand
their mistake.
The previous two sub-sections have discussed some thematic situation where address forms are used. However, some situations allow the
dropping of address forms. This issue is further discussed in the following sub-section.
The Use of Zero Address Forms
There are some situations when address forms are optional. It means,
in some contexts, the address form can be dropped. This phenomenon is
referred as Zero Address Form (Tripp, 2001; Wardaugh, 2006).
When Mandela meets all the staff of the presidential office for the
first time, he does not know what to call his staff; he greeted them all
with good morning, without using any address form. This is because at
that point of time, he was still a newly elected president, and did not
know well all the officers.
Some of the staff (mostly white) did not even reply the greeting
back. Some replied but drop the address form. We know that the proper
address should be Mr. President. However, this refusal is probably
caused by their discomfort of being lead by a black president, which can
be considered as a denial.
The use of zero address form is also presented in different scene (example 8).
Example (9)
[Telephone ringing. The secretary then picked up the phone]
Prihantoro , On The Choice Address Forms 45
Secretary
: Good morning, office of the president. (Short
pause, listening to the caller). Yes Sir,
yes…we’ll have that ready for you.
It can be seen that when the president’s secretary was receiving phone
call she did not use any address form. She just said good morning since
she did not know who called. But as soon as she understood with whom
she was speaking, she used Sir. Ervin-Tripp (2001), Wardaugh (2006)
and Yang (2010) confirm that one of the reasons of using zero address
form is because the proper address form to the addressee is still unknown.
The Progress of Address Forms
The progress of address forms was explained by Brown and Ford
(1961). They stated that the use of address forms to a person might
change over time. They gave an instance of a prospective graduate student who met his faculty member who was relatively still young. He addressed the prospective graduate student with FN to extend the hands of
friendship. Even though the faculty member is young, the prospective
graduate student could not directly address him with FN for it was still
too early. Hence, Title+LN was used. But after four year in the university, the student might advance to mutual FN address.
In this movie, the progress was conveyed when Jason Tshabalala, the
head of presidential guard came to the office to see President Nelson
Mandela. He needed to confirm the order of assigning four white cops as
additional presidential guards. The order was signed by Mandela.
Example (10)
(J)ason
: Sorry to disturb you, Sir. (Opening the door, approaching Mandela)
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TEFLIN Journal, Volume 23, Number 1, January 2012
(M)andela
J
: You look agitated, Jason.
: That's because there are four Special Branch
cops in my office.
G
: Oh. What did you do?
J
: Nothing. They say they are presidential bodyguards and they have orders signed by you.
M
: Ah yes. Ah yes. Well, these men are special
trained by SAS. They have lots of experience.
They protected de KIerk.
J
: Yes. but it doesn't mean that they have to—
(Mandela interrupted)
M
: You asked for more men. Didn’t you?
J
: Yes. Sir. I asked—(Mandela interrupted again)
M
: When people see me in public......they see my
bodyguards. You represent me directly. The
rainbow nation starts here. Reconciliation starts
here.
J
: Reconciliation, Sir?
M
: Yes. Reconciliation, Jason.
[Jason inhaled and replied]
J
: Comrade President, not long ago, these guys
tried to kill us. Maybe even these four guys in
my office tried and often succeeded.
M
: Yes, I know. Forgiveness starts here too. Forgiveness liberates the soul. It removes fear.
That is why it is such a powerful weapon.
Please, Jason. Try.
J
: Sorry to disturb you, Sir.
A little bit different with the previous case, here the progression happened very fast (just in seconds) and in two directions. At first, Jason
tried to maintain formality by using Sir to address Mandela. But as he
Prihantoro , On The Choice Address Forms 47
argued more, he used an in-group identity marker (IGM) Comrade President. As he did not manage to change the decision, he returned to using
Sir.
There a lot of aspects that affect the choice of address forms. For instance, title + LN like Mrs.Brits is used by Mandela even to address a
servant, his subordinate, who is older than him. Even at the end of the
movie, Mandela was addressed by just his first name, Nelson, by the audience in the Ellis Park, the national rugby stadium.
However, some address forms are absolute like Madiba and Comrade President that are used exclusively among black South Africans to
show common ground as freedom fighters and share the feeling of having been oppressed by apartheid system. None of the in-group identity
marker is used by or among white South Africans.
CONCLUSIONS
This present study has shown that there are three categories of address forms used by the characters in the movie Invictus: Titles and
Names, Kinship Terms and Intimate Addresses. The finding shows some
patterns in the address forms. Some of the findings are in accordance
with the previous findings in previous studies but some of the unique
address forms (intimate addresses) are also found.
The address forms is used based on their functions. The choice might
be used to show power over the subordinates and to reduce or maintain
social distance among the participants. Some intimate address forms are
used to establish a common ground as an exclusive member of a group.
Address forms like Madiba and Comrade are used to share the sense of
freedom fighter and oppose apartheid system. These address forms are
the products of Apartheid system. In Invictus, the dropping of address
forms might also be used when the identity of the participants is not
known, or as a denial of one’s superordination. in this case the denial of
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TEFLIN Journal, Volume 23, Number 1, January 2012
Nelson Mandela’s presidency. It is also possible that the address might
change as time progresses.
The writer believes that the there are more language devices that
were used to oppose the Apartheid system. Future studies might be performed over other types of discourses (newspapers, books, magazines,
radiobroadcast etc) in the native languages used in South Africa.
REFERENCES
Aliakbari, M. & Toni, A. 2008. The Realization of Address Terms in
Modern Persian in Iran: A Sociolinguistic Study. Linguistics
Online, 35 (3): 3-12.
Brown, R.1965. Social Psychology. New York; The Free Press.
Brown, P. & Levinson, S.C. 1987. Politeness: Some Universals in Language Usage. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Brown, R. & Ford, M. 1961. Address in American English. In D. Hymes
(Ed.), Language in Culture and Society. New York: Harper and
Row.
Brown, R. & Albert, G.1960. The Pronouns of Power and Solidarity.
American Anthropologist, 4 (6): 24–39.
Choo, M. 2006. The Structure and Use of Korean Honorifics. In Sohn,
H.M. (Ed.). Korean Language in Culture and Society. University of
Hawaii Press.
Dickey, E. 1997. Forms of Address and Terms of Reference. J. Linguistics, 33:255-274.
Djenar, D.N. 2006. Patterns and Variation of Address Terms in Colloquial Indonesian. Australian Review of Applied Linguistics, 29 (2):
22.1-22.16.
Prihantoro , On The Choice Address Forms 49
Ervin-Tripp, S.M. 1972. Alternation and Co-occurrence. In J. J.
Gumperz & D. Hymes (Eds.), Directions in Sociolinguistics: The
Ethnography of Communication(pp.218-250).. New York: Holt,
Rinehart and Winston,
_______________. 2001. Sociolinguistic Rules of Address. In J.B. Pride
& J. Holmes (Eds.) Sociolinguistics (pp.225-240). Harmondsworth,
England: Penguin Books.
Helmbrecht, J. 2005. Politeness Distinctions in Pronoun, In M. Haspelmath, et al. (Eds.), The World Atlas of Language Structures (pp.
186-190). Oxford: Oxford University Press..
Jaworski, A & Galasinzki, D. 2000. Vocative Address Forms and Ideological Legitimization in Political Debate. Discourse Studies, 2 (1):
35-53.
Kridalaksana, H. 1974. Second Participant in Indonesian Address. Language Sciences 31: 17–20.
McDonald, P.D. 2009. The Literature Police: Apartheid Censorship and
Its Cultural Consequences. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Prihantoro. 2005. Pronoun ‘You’ and Address Forms Among Foreigners
as ISL (Indonesian as Second Language) Learners. UnpublishedBachelor’s Thesis. Semarang: Universitas Diponegoro.
Prihantoro. 2011. Kata Sapaan: Refleksi Sosial Budaya Korea. Buku
Pengantar Korea Seri 4: Pusparagam Sosial Budaya Korea. INAKOS Korean Studies Centre Universitas Gadjah Mada. Yogyakarta:
INAKOS Press.
Wardhaugh, R. 2006. An Introduction to Sociolinguistics. New York:
Wiley-Blackwell.
Yang, X. 2010. Address Forms of English: Rules and Variations. Journal of Language Teaching and Research, 1 (5): 743-745.
50
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INTIMATE ADDRESS FORMS AS IN-GROUP
IDENTITY MARKERS OF BLACK SOUTH AFRICANS
IN ‘Invictus’ MOVIE
Prihantoro
([email protected])
Universitas Diponegoro
Jl. Prof. Soedharto, S.H., Tembalang Semarang 50269, Indonesia
Abstract: Invictus is a movie which is adapted from a true story of how
the South African President, Nelson Mandela, tried to unite South Africa
by supporting the national rugby team, Springbok, which used to be the
symbol of Apartheid. His relation with other characters in this movie is reflected from the address forms and the choice is influenced by many aspects like social distance among the participants, age difference, formality
scale etc. This paper focuses on the choice of address forms used among
the participants. Besides the variety and progressive use of address forms,
the finding also shows that the choice of address forms used by ‘black’
and ‘white’ South Africans are quite different, especially those addressed
to Mandela. I observed that some in-group identity markers among the
blacks are realized by intimate address forms like Mandela’s nickname
Madiba, or companion address Comrade. In the past, these address forms
are known as the devices to struggle against the Apartheid system.
Key words: address forms, apartheid, power, solidarity.
Below is an exchange of conversation between a ‘(B)lack’ and a
‘(W)hite’ presidential guards in the office as shown in Invictus movie.
(B) : Madiba does not like it if you don’t smile when you push
people away.
(W) : Madiba? (bizarre look).
28
Prihantoro , On The Choice Address Forms 29
(B)
(W)
(B)
: That’s the president’s clan name. That’s what we call
him.
(Silence for a while)
: We’ll call him Mr. President.
: Can we go through the schedule now? (Agitated)
Apartheid system can simply be defined as legal racial discrimination of ‘white’ and ‘black’ (where white minority group used to rule)
that used to be adopted by South African government (Mc Donald,
2009). Back in 1894-1994, for 50 years, this complexion-based racial
segregation has set a dividing wall among the inhabitants of South Africa. For years, there have also been some attempts to disengage this system. The inauguration of Nelson Mandela as South African President in
1994 is the culmination point, but even after he was formally elected,
Mandela still encountered the residue of the Apartheid system; which
was the extreme dislike from black South African over the whites and
also vice-verse. The wound caused by the system is hard to heal quickly.
One of Mandela’s attempts to disengage the impression of apartheid
is by supporting Springbok, the national rugby team of South Africa. At
first, many people did not like this because in the past, this team was
considered to represent apartheid: The black had never been appointed
as team member. For this reason, black Africans would cheer for any
Springbok’s opponents. Mandela took initiative to change this. His attempt was finally highly appreciated and adapted into a movie, Invictus.
In that movie, address forms is presented as one of the language devices
used to symbolize opposition against apartheid system.
This paper aims at describing the use of pronouns and address forms
used by the characters in Invictus. The first section of this chapter presents the background of the research including previous studies. The second section presents research method and the third section presents patterns of address forms used by the characters in this movie. Fourth sec-
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TEFLIN Journal, Volume 23, Number 1, January 2012
tion discusses the choice of the address forms by the characters in the
context where they are spoken: note that the discussion is thematic. Fifth
section concludes the paper with a summary and it also contains some
suggestions for further research.
There are some reasons why this movie is worth an analysis. First,
the usage of address forms in this movie is quite dynamic and varied.
One can be addressed by several address forms depending on particular
aspects, like solidarity scale, power relation, degree of formality and etc.
Second, some of the address forms are unique: address forms like Sir,
Mr, and Dear are quite familiar in English. However some other address
forms in this movie require shared knowledge like Mandiga, Baba,
which seems to be the native terms unique in South Africa. Third, the
choice of address forms is not without purpose. The analysis presented
in the discussion section of this paper will show that the choice of some
address forms still reflects the heritage of Apartheid system in South Africa. It also shows a particular social bond or group exclusiveness among
the participants engaged in the discourse.
LITERATURE REVIEW
The basic concept adopted in this paper is power and solidarity relation that was studied by Brown and Gilman (1961) in French. They have
observed that the use of pronouns might reflect power and solidarity
scale among the participants engaged in the interaction. The study performed by Brown and Gilman about how tu and vous pronoun covers
this issue, which is later known as T-V distinction of power and solidarity. Although the term ‘T-V’ distinction originated from French, this term
has been widely used in sociolinguistic and pragmatic studies.
In some languages like French, Spanish, Dutch (Helmbrecht, 2005)
or some other languages that have low-high form pronouns, T-V distinction can be seen clearly from the pronoun for there are some form distinctions with regard to participants relationship. However in English,
Prihantoro , On The Choice Address Forms 31
for instance, You is the only second person pronoun that is addressed regardless of the power and solidarity among the participants. Hence, we
can still observe the power and solidarity among the participants by observing the use of another linguistic device.
Power and solidarity in the language where the pronouns are quite
‘neutral’, are represented by the choice of address forms like Sir, Dear,
Mr etc. As a foreground, Power and solidarity scale is observed in
Brown and Ford (1961), Brown (1965) and Ervin-Tripp (1972, 2001)
who studied the formula for addressing. In a more generic sense, Brown
and Levinson (1987) included the choice of address forms as one of the
positive politeness strategy. This strategy implies on taking hearer’s
need into account, caring about his/her interest. The choice of address
forms, one of them, is employed as an in-group marker as an attempt to
reduce FTA (Face Threatening Act). The effect is quite strong since it
establishes one common ground shared between addressor and the addressee. But one must be careful since the inappropriate choice of address form might increase FTA weight, damaging the hearer. That is
why this strategy is commonly employed by those who are solidary or
who know each other fairly well.
Many of the research concerning address forms have been performed
over individual languages like English (Dickey, 1997; Yang, 2010), Indonesian (Kridalaksana, 1974, Prihantoro, 2005; Djenar, 2011), Polish
(Jaworsky & Galzinski, 2000), Korean (Choo, 2006; Prihantoro, 2011)
and some other languages.
This study observes the use of English address terms in South Africa
used by the characters in the movie. Although the scenario of the movie
is considered an artificial one, this study is considered important as the
choice of the address forms in this is carefully selected to convey the effect of Apartheid system in South Africa.
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TEFLIN Journal, Volume 23, Number 1, January 2012
METHOD
The data in this movie is obtained from a direct observation on the
movie. It began with the identification of address terms used by the
characters in the movie. The conversations in the some carefully selected
scenes were transcribed to represents the contexts where the address
forms are used. Besides, dialogue among the participants, some situational aspects that support the choice of address forms were also added
on the transcripts as well as the setting, channel (direct conversation,
phone, letter etc), degree of informality and other required aspects to
support analysis in the discussion section. The address forms were then
listed and classified into different categories in the findings section. Note
that in the list, the categorization is form based, while the functions are
elaborated in discussion section.
Discussion section is divided into four sub sub-sections. Each section
is organized thematically based on the functions of the address forms.
Thus, in the thematic classification readers might find address forms
from different categories in the findings mixed up.
FINDINGS
The story of Invictus movie revolves around Nelson Mandela, the
newly elected president of South Africa, and Francois Pienaar, the captain of Springbok Rugby Team. Address forms in this movie are identified mostly in Mandela’s dialogue with other characters in terms of frequency and variation. But, not many dialogues performed by Pienaar,
the second leading character. The scenes involving Pienaar depicts more
physical action in the rugby field than dialogues. The roles of other
characters are also taken into account as addressors instead of addressees. This section discusses findings, which are the types, patterns and
lists of address forms used by the characters in the movie.
Prihantoro , On The Choice Address Forms 33
Title and Name
Address forms with title and name is dominant in this movie. As it is
widely known in English (Brown & Ford, 1961; Dickey, 1997; Yang,
2010), they might be used separately or combined together. The pattern
also follows the common patterns of address forms found in English. For
instance, Nelson Mandela can be addressed by his first and last name
(FN+LN). He is sometimes addressed also by Mandela (LN), almost
never by Nelson (FN). There is only one scene in the end where Nelson
Mandela is addressed by FN by the sport fans in the rugby stadium. Address forms with FN are frequently used to address other characters like
Francois for Springbok captain, Jason for the head of presidential guard,
Brenda for Mandela’s secretary, Eunice for the servant and some other
supporting characters. The address form that includes middle name is
not found in this movie.
Table 1. Titles and Names as Address Forms
No
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
Patterns
FN
Examples
Nelson, Brenda, Chester, Mary, Hendrick, Francois, Sindzi
LN
Mandela
FN+LN
Nelson Mandela
Honorific Title
Sir
Rank Title
Captain
Honorific Title + LN
Mr. Pienaar, Mrs. Brits
Rank Title+LN
Captain Feyder , President Mandela
Honorific Title+FN+LN Mr. Nelson Mandela, Mr. Jason
Tshabalala
Honorific Title+ Rank Mr.President
Title
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TEFLIN Journal, Volume 23, Number 1, January 2012
Honorific address like Sir is also frequently used. None of this address
form in the movie goes with name. An honorific title Mr is also frequently found and usually combined with name. The patterns are
Mr+FN+LN (Mr. Jason Tshabalala) or MR+LN (Mr. Mandela), but
never Mr+FN (*Mr. Nelson). This complies to the patterns of addresses
for English where Mr does not usually go with first name.
The use of Mr is sometimes followed by official rank in the government like Mr. President and Mr. Minister. Table 1 above presents the title and name address forms used in this movie:
Kinship
Title and name are not the only types of address form used in the
movie. Kinship terms are also used as address terms, but they can sometimes be used as references. Note that they are two distinct phenomena.
The word Son, for example, has two meaning: referential meaning and
address meaning. Referential meaning is used in non address context
(Dickey, 1997). Son as in ‘I have a son’ is an instance of kinship term in
referential sense, as opposed to Son in ‘good luck, Son’ which has address meaning.
Based on the kinship relations, the address forms in this movie can
be classified into two: parent-child (e.g. son, boy) and sibling (e.g.
brother, sister). They are presented in table 2:
Table 2. Kinship Terms as Address Forms
No
1
2
Patterns
Parent-child
Sibling
Examples
Son, Boy,Ma
Brother, Sister
These forms allow addresses to be used among those that do not
even have family ties. For instance, Son is used by Nelson Mandela to
Prihantoro , On The Choice Address Forms 35
address Francois Pienaar. They are not related as a family at all, but the
use of this kind of address forms may reduce social distance among the
speakers
Intimate Addresses
Intimate addresses are used to reflect a particular relationship among
the speakers, which is friendly and close as studied in English (Brown
and Ford, 1961), Persian (Aliakbari and Tomi, 2010). Given that formality and rank are taken into account, there are some situations where the
participants can address colleagues in more amiable tone.
In this movie, there are several intimate address forms that are quite
unique. The first type is the personal nickname used to address Nelson
Mandela, Madiba. this address forms is originated from his clan name,
as it is described in the excerpt shown in the beginning of this paper. Beside Madiba, Nelson Mandela can also be addressed with another intimate address Dada.
The second type is group nickname Okes. This nickname originates
from the nickname of Springbok rugby team. This national rugby team is
nicknamed Bokke, and to address the members of the group as a whole,
it is shortened to Okes.
The third type is in-group address like Comrade. This address form
is widely known to be used among the socialist or communist especially
in the meeting. In this movie, Comrade is also used in the meeting where
the agenda is to boycott Springbok. Nelson Mandela is addressed with
Comrade or Comrade President a combination of in group address and
rank title. In depth discussion is presented in the discussion section, but
the list of intimate address is presented in table 3.
The address forms found in this movie are quite dynamic in terms
of patterns or addressor-addressee relation, since one can be addressed
by different address forms. It reflects the addressors attitude toward the
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TEFLIN Journal, Volume 23, Number 1, January 2012
addressees. Next section discusses some essential function of address
forms that are organized thematically.
Table 3: Intimate Address Forms
No
1
2
3
4
Patterns
Personal Nickname
Group Nickname
In-Group Address
In Group Address + Rank Title
Examples
Madiba, Dada
Okes
Comrade(s)
Comrade President
DISCUSSION
Social Distance, Formality and Age
Social distance among the participants can be observed from the address terms especially from the use of title and name (Brown and
Ford,1961: Ervin-Tripp 1972, 2001). The honorific address forms such
as Mr, Sir, Mrs are used to address a person of superior power or of
higher rank, as presented in example 1. The dialogue is between the
white coach and his team member (white Africans). They are talking
about Mandela:
Example (1)
Team member : Who is that, Sir?
Coach
: It’s that terrorist, Mandela. They let him out.
The dialogue took place in the training ground for junior rugby team. All
participants are white. We focus on the forms addressed to the coach by
team members, Sir, which reflect rank difference. Sir is also used among
black and white participants even if the addressee is white, as illustrated
in example 2.
Prihantoro , On The Choice Address Forms 37
Example (2)
Feyder : Captain Feyder and team reporting for duty, Sir!
Jason : What duty?
Feyder : With the presidential bodyguard. We’ve been assigned
to this office.
Here are our orders.
The dialogue takes place in the presidential office among presidential
guards. Jason (black) is the head of the guard. He is the man that Mandela trusts the most to protect him. Jason once requested for more men to
protect President Nelson Mandela. He was surprised as there were four
special branch cops in his office. He was surprised not because of the
special branch cops were well known for they expertise, but he was
more surprised that the cops are all white instead of black like all his
team personnel.
Here we can see that Sir is used by Feyder (white) as Jason has officially higher rank than him. They are also engaged in the conversation
for the first time and had not known each other before. The racial difference did not affect the choice of address forms in formal situation. This
happens most of the time in the movie. Now, let us have a look at example (3), where names are also used:
Example (3)
President (C)lerk
: Mr. Pienaar. Right this way, please.
(F)rancois
: Yeah. Thank you.
(C)
: Go on in.
[Francois was greeted by (M)andela in his presidential office.]
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TEFLIN Journal, Volume 23, Number 1, January 2012
(M)
(F)
(M)
: Francois. What an honor. I am so excited. Thank you for coming all this way to
see me.
: Yes, Sir. Thank you for inviting me, Mr.
President.
: Do tell me, Francois. How is your ankIe?
Francois Pienaar, the captain of Springbok was waiting to see the president. He was invited for a tea. The president’s clerk addressed him with
Mr. Pienaar, which is a combination of title and last name. Here we can
see that she tries to maintain formality with Pienaar who is totally the
opposite of Mandela. In example (3) we can see that Mandela keeps addressing him using just Pienaar.
The president addresses Pienaar with just his first name Francois to
reduce social distance and formality. But the captain tried to maintain
formality and social distance by addressing Mandela with Sir and Mr.
President. This complies with the proposal of Brown and Ford (1961)
that people of socially lower in rank tend to use high form to address
ones of higher rank, which does not necessary apply for higher (H) rank
to lower rank (L); also known as non-reciprocality. Consider the summary in table (4):
Table 4. Non Reciprocal Address Forms: Nelson Mandela and Francois Pienaar
Participants
From
To
Mandela
Pienaar
Pienaar
Mandela
Mandela
Pienaar
Address
L: Francois
H: Sir, Mr.President
L: Francois
Prihantoro , On The Choice Address Forms 39
Nelson Mandela and Francois Pienaar have just met for the first time. If
we refer to the situation in example (2) with Jason and Feyder, they
should have addressed each other with title since the situation is formal.
However, Mandela chose to use high form (title), or low (first name). In
example (3) we see that he just addressed the captain with first name. In
the same scene, Mandela addresses his presidential servant with title +
LN. Consider example (4):
Example (4)
[Mrs. Britz, the presidential office servant came with the tea. The
president welcomed her.]
Mandela (to Mrs. Brits)
: You are a shining light in my day.
Mrs. Brits
: Yes, Sir.
(M)
: Mrs. Britz, this is Francois
Pienaar, captain of the
Springbok.
[Mrs.Brits and Francois spoke in African Dialect for a while]
Mrs. Brits (to Mandela)
(M)
: Shall I pour, Sir?
: No. No. I would prefer to do it
myself. Thank you very much,
Mrs. Brits. How do you like
your tea. Francois?
Despite his higher rank, Mandela still addressed his presidential servant
with Mrs. This might possibly be caused by the age difference. The
servant is already old, approximately as old as Mandela, while Francois
is much younger than Mandela. All the people that Mandela addressed
with first name were much younger than him.
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TEFLIN Journal, Volume 23, Number 1, January 2012
Since Mandela is the highest in official rank, it is quite difficult to
observe scenes where he is addressed with only first name. But, by the
end of the movie, all the audience in national stadium regardless their
skin color called him with just first name Nelson repeatedly. In this informal situation, we can see that the social distance has been reduced.
The first name addressed to Mandela in this movie has broken down the
border between black and white South African, which is also represented
by the support of all South Africans to Springbok team.
Besides FN, another address form that can also reduce social distance is nickname. In this movie, there is a scene when Mandela is addressed by a nickname Dada.
Example (5)
(S)ervant
(M)andela
(S)
(M)
(S)
(M)
(S)
(M)
(S)
: Here's your Muti, Madiba. I warmed the miIk
tonight.
: Ah. You are too good to me, Mary.
: Your daughter called to cancel her visit this
weekend.
: Did she say why?
: No. she didn't. She said to tell you she was sorry.
: I see.
: Do you need anything else tonight?
: No, Mary. Thank you. I will go to bed.
: Good evening, Dada.
Mary is the servant of Mandela in his house. Besides serving Muti (African dish) she was informing Mandela about the cancellation of his
daughter’s visit. She is the only one that addresses Mandela with Dada
in this movie. Mandela himself did not show any rejection of this address.
Prihantoro , On The Choice Address Forms 41
To reduce social distance among the participants, one can also use
kinship terms. Kinship terms are terms that refer to family members, but
not exclusively used for genealogically related members only. For example, the use of Bu or Pak in Indonesian language, which refers to
mother and father, are used as a respectful address even though the participants do not have family relation at all. In this movie, some of the
kinship terms are also used as address forms to reduce social distance. In
the greeting session before the rugby match begins, Mandela addressed
each team member with Son, wishing them good luck for the game.
In another situation, Mandela used kinship terms Brother and Sister
(example 8) to address members of a group. But the intimate address
terms also serve as in-group identity markers, which will be discussed in
the next section.
In-Group Identity Marking
In this movie, I identified some of the address forms that are used
only among black South Africans. Most of them are classified to intimate address forms type.
The use of address forms as in-group identity markers is presented in
example (6):
Example (6)
President’s Clerk : Madiba? The cabinet ministers are here to brief
you on the trip to Taiwan.
Mandela
: Oh yes, I’ll be right out
Here, the president’s clerk was giving a friendly reminder to Mandela
about the meeting with the ministers. She addressed Mandela with just
Madiba and it is just normal address that all black South Africans use.
Madiba is the president’s clan name, and that become an address form
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TEFLIN Journal, Volume 23, Number 1, January 2012
for him. Although the situation is formal, we see that this address is preserved. Mandela himself always addresses his presidential clerk with just
first name Brenda as she is black. Whoever the addressor is, as long as
he or she is black, he or she can address Mandela using Madiba (no
whites addressed Mandela this way).
Besides Madiba, another address form that is used as an in-group
marker is Comrade, as presented in example (7):
Example (7)
Jason
Mandela
: Comrade President, not long ago, these guys tried to
kill us. Maybe even these four guys in my office tried
and often succeeded.
: Yes. I know…. Forgiveness starts here too. Forgiveness liberates the soul. It removes fear. That is why
it is such a powerful weapon. Please, Jason. Try…
Jason, the head of presidential bodyguard, came to the office of the president to confirm the letter signed by Mandela. He is questioning why
there are white cops to help him. Mandela explains that this is his method of reconciliation, to unite the black and white.
We see that the address form used by Jason is Comrade President.
Comrade is a term that is used by the socialists or communists to address
friends in a meeting. In this movie, this address form reflects the bond of
Jason and Mandela as fellow freedom fighters to oppose apartheid system.
Brown and Gilman (1987) categorize the use of address terms under
positive politeness strategy as a strategy to establish a common ground.
We might see that the terms Comrade and Madiba are used to establish a
common ground among the participants as black South Africans who
used to be oppressed. No whites can use these two addresses to Mandela.
Prihantoro , On The Choice Address Forms 43
Let us consider another situation where the combination of comrade
with rank, Comrade President, is used. In this situation, Comrade President is addressed in a meeting (Example 8)
Example (8)
[South African anthem was stopped]
(L)eader of the meeting : Comrades, Comrades, members of
the choir. We would only interrupt
such beautiful music for something
truly important. Please welcome, President Mandela. (welcoming the president)
[The president is walking to the front, greeted by everyone]
(M)andela
: Thank you. (smiling)
Woman
: Madiba.
Man 1
: WeIcome. Madiba.
(M)
: Thank you.
Man 2
: MandeIa.
[Short pause. Mandela took position on the microphone and
spoke.]
(M)
: Brothers......Sisters......Comrades. I am here because I believe you have made a decision...
...with insufficient information and foresight.
The meeting was attended by many people, most of them were not
known by Mandela. He could only see that all of them were black. In
this way, the use of address terms Comrade among the participants is
still acceptable. The dialogue excerpt above has shown that intimate address forms can also be used for strangers as long as they have a common ground.
We can see here that Mandela addressed the participants, all of
whom are black, with various addresses Brothers, Sisters, and Com-
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TEFLIN Journal, Volume 23, Number 1, January 2012
rades. Mandela used these addresses to indicate a special bond of family
and fellow freedom fighters. By indicating the common grounds, he
hoped that people will listen to his explanation and finally understand
their mistake.
The previous two sub-sections have discussed some thematic situation where address forms are used. However, some situations allow the
dropping of address forms. This issue is further discussed in the following sub-section.
The Use of Zero Address Forms
There are some situations when address forms are optional. It means,
in some contexts, the address form can be dropped. This phenomenon is
referred as Zero Address Form (Tripp, 2001; Wardaugh, 2006).
When Mandela meets all the staff of the presidential office for the
first time, he does not know what to call his staff; he greeted them all
with good morning, without using any address form. This is because at
that point of time, he was still a newly elected president, and did not
know well all the officers.
Some of the staff (mostly white) did not even reply the greeting
back. Some replied but drop the address form. We know that the proper
address should be Mr. President. However, this refusal is probably
caused by their discomfort of being lead by a black president, which can
be considered as a denial.
The use of zero address form is also presented in different scene (example 8).
Example (9)
[Telephone ringing. The secretary then picked up the phone]
Prihantoro , On The Choice Address Forms 45
Secretary
: Good morning, office of the president. (Short
pause, listening to the caller). Yes Sir,
yes…we’ll have that ready for you.
It can be seen that when the president’s secretary was receiving phone
call she did not use any address form. She just said good morning since
she did not know who called. But as soon as she understood with whom
she was speaking, she used Sir. Ervin-Tripp (2001), Wardaugh (2006)
and Yang (2010) confirm that one of the reasons of using zero address
form is because the proper address form to the addressee is still unknown.
The Progress of Address Forms
The progress of address forms was explained by Brown and Ford
(1961). They stated that the use of address forms to a person might
change over time. They gave an instance of a prospective graduate student who met his faculty member who was relatively still young. He addressed the prospective graduate student with FN to extend the hands of
friendship. Even though the faculty member is young, the prospective
graduate student could not directly address him with FN for it was still
too early. Hence, Title+LN was used. But after four year in the university, the student might advance to mutual FN address.
In this movie, the progress was conveyed when Jason Tshabalala, the
head of presidential guard came to the office to see President Nelson
Mandela. He needed to confirm the order of assigning four white cops as
additional presidential guards. The order was signed by Mandela.
Example (10)
(J)ason
: Sorry to disturb you, Sir. (Opening the door, approaching Mandela)
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TEFLIN Journal, Volume 23, Number 1, January 2012
(M)andela
J
: You look agitated, Jason.
: That's because there are four Special Branch
cops in my office.
G
: Oh. What did you do?
J
: Nothing. They say they are presidential bodyguards and they have orders signed by you.
M
: Ah yes. Ah yes. Well, these men are special
trained by SAS. They have lots of experience.
They protected de KIerk.
J
: Yes. but it doesn't mean that they have to—
(Mandela interrupted)
M
: You asked for more men. Didn’t you?
J
: Yes. Sir. I asked—(Mandela interrupted again)
M
: When people see me in public......they see my
bodyguards. You represent me directly. The
rainbow nation starts here. Reconciliation starts
here.
J
: Reconciliation, Sir?
M
: Yes. Reconciliation, Jason.
[Jason inhaled and replied]
J
: Comrade President, not long ago, these guys
tried to kill us. Maybe even these four guys in
my office tried and often succeeded.
M
: Yes, I know. Forgiveness starts here too. Forgiveness liberates the soul. It removes fear.
That is why it is such a powerful weapon.
Please, Jason. Try.
J
: Sorry to disturb you, Sir.
A little bit different with the previous case, here the progression happened very fast (just in seconds) and in two directions. At first, Jason
tried to maintain formality by using Sir to address Mandela. But as he
Prihantoro , On The Choice Address Forms 47
argued more, he used an in-group identity marker (IGM) Comrade President. As he did not manage to change the decision, he returned to using
Sir.
There a lot of aspects that affect the choice of address forms. For instance, title + LN like Mrs.Brits is used by Mandela even to address a
servant, his subordinate, who is older than him. Even at the end of the
movie, Mandela was addressed by just his first name, Nelson, by the audience in the Ellis Park, the national rugby stadium.
However, some address forms are absolute like Madiba and Comrade President that are used exclusively among black South Africans to
show common ground as freedom fighters and share the feeling of having been oppressed by apartheid system. None of the in-group identity
marker is used by or among white South Africans.
CONCLUSIONS
This present study has shown that there are three categories of address forms used by the characters in the movie Invictus: Titles and
Names, Kinship Terms and Intimate Addresses. The finding shows some
patterns in the address forms. Some of the findings are in accordance
with the previous findings in previous studies but some of the unique
address forms (intimate addresses) are also found.
The address forms is used based on their functions. The choice might
be used to show power over the subordinates and to reduce or maintain
social distance among the participants. Some intimate address forms are
used to establish a common ground as an exclusive member of a group.
Address forms like Madiba and Comrade are used to share the sense of
freedom fighter and oppose apartheid system. These address forms are
the products of Apartheid system. In Invictus, the dropping of address
forms might also be used when the identity of the participants is not
known, or as a denial of one’s superordination. in this case the denial of
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Nelson Mandela’s presidency. It is also possible that the address might
change as time progresses.
The writer believes that the there are more language devices that
were used to oppose the Apartheid system. Future studies might be performed over other types of discourses (newspapers, books, magazines,
radiobroadcast etc) in the native languages used in South Africa.
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